What would happen to Obama administration law enforcement agents if they recruited legitimate firearms dealers to sell guns to border-crossing smugglers as bait to snag high-level Mexican drug cartel leaders, and then lost track of the guns in Mexico? Nothing. What would happen if this inept Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sting operation, named Project Gunrunner, passed so many bait guns to violent criminals — instead of intercepting them as intended — that one was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December?
Nothing. Project Gunrunner had been whitewashed by a 152-page Justice Department Inspector General Review in November 2010, before the Terry murder.
But what would happen if National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea and fellow bloggers publicly exposed the ATF’s Project Gunrunner and its offshoot, Operation Fast and Furious?
A surprise: Immediately, a half-dozen veteran Phoenix-based agents came forward and revealed that the ATF had indeed directed the sale of hundreds of high-powered rifles and handguns to suspects — despite the objections of gun shop owners.
Two members of Congress with watchdog reputations — Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — were appalled at the whistleblower evidence they received, grabbed the issue last year, and haven’t let go since.
In late January, Grassley fired off a letter to acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson, seeking a response to the allegations. To his shock, the reply letter came not from Melson, but a superior in the Justice Department, claiming all the whistleblower allegations were false.
Bad timing: CBS News soon broadcast a whistleblower saying, “There were over 2,500 guns on that case, including some .50-calibers they let walk away.”
Issa wrote a mid-March letter to the ATF’s Melson requesting specific gunrunner documents and records related to the death of Terry. No response.
But the elephant in the room was becoming harder to ignore. President Obama said that neither he nor Attorney General Holder authorized this operation — odd, since the White House had requested a nearly $12 million appropriation for the project’s 2011 budget.
Holder, an anti-gun ideologue, kept stony silence as evidence mounted that his department was lying, including arrests of gun smugglers and the discovery of specific guns that went to Mexico and came back.
Grassley told reporters, “I’m still asking questions and we’re still getting the runaround from the Justice Department. They’re stonewalling.”
Issa was steamed. He issued a subpoena to the ATF for the documents, with an “our-cops-are-crooks” remark that moving guns into Mexico “may have contributed to the deaths of hundreds on both sides of the border, including federal law enforcement agents.”
The ATF missed the subpoena deadline, more evidence piled up, and Issa threatened to issue a contempt order against Melson. Then Holder gave evasive testimony before the House and Senate Judiciary committees early last month, further poisoning congressional trust in him.
As a result, this border war story is now so clouded and convoluted that even reporters need help, so Codrea and other investigators prepared a three-part “Journalist’s Guide to Project Gunrunner.”
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman has sniffed out a gunrunner hearing to be held by Issa’s committee about mid-June. Staffers acknowledge Workman’s finding, but remain cagey about the exact date and who might be on the witness list. Melson and Holder, perhaps?
Are our cops the crooks?
Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.
